Annual Camp Halfblood Christmas Party
by Aleria14
Summary: Its time for the annual Camp Half-blood Christmas party, but when Percy and Annabeth get there its a disaster with everybody at each others throats. Can Percy fix this and save Christmas for everyone with a little help from the Gods?


**Alright, this is for my friend fangalicous08's christmas competition on deviantart. Personally, I thought that it was a brilliant idea so I decided to join in the fun :) It also gave me a reason to write a Christmas fic! YAY!**

**Anyway, I also apologise for it's longness. It had to be a oneshot and although I tried to shorten it, it didn't work so well. But hopefully you enjoy it anyway.**

**DiScLaImEr: I dOn'T oWn PeRcY JaCkSoN oR ChRiStMaS iTsElF. ThErE iS nO wAy ThAt I cOuLd OwN ChRiStMaS :P SoRrY fOr ThE wEiRd WrItInG bUt I wAs BoReD...**

**And one more thing: I know about the new Heroes of Olympus series, so this fic technically isn't possible because Percy wouldn't actually be there for Christmas...but let's just have some fun and pretend that it hasn't happened yet, ok? This is only a fanfic afterall. Thanks.**

**Enjoy, guys. And if you don't, then have a Merry Christmas anyway!**

* * *

"Percy!" Mom called from behind me and I muted the TV before turning to look over at her.

"Yeah, mom?"

"You've got a letter," she said with a smile, making her way over. My first thought was that it was a prank or something because I never got letters. Ever. Unless of course it was a letter from a school saying that I wouldn't be welcome back next year. I stared blankly at her. "Oh, don't look at me like that. You'll like this one, I promise."

She handed me the envelope and when I read the return address I felt my lips curling into a smile. It may have been jumbled due to my dyslexia but I didn't have to be able to read it to know where it was from: _Delphi Strawberry Service, Long Island Sound._

"Why do they always invite us by mail?" I asked mom curiously, beginning to tear at the envelope eagerly. "I mean, most of us are dyslexic for one, and we already _know _when and where it is."

Mom smiled. "I don't know, Percy. Maybe Mr. D just likes getting everyone's name wrong on the invite every year."

"Wouldn't surprise me," I replied before starting to decipher it.

"What's going on?" Paul suddenly asked, coming out of the bathroom in a bathrobe, looking between the two of us.

"Just give me a sec to read it," I told him and they were very patient until I was ready to read it out loud.

"_Dear Peter Johnson,"_ I started and mom and I shared a look that said 'saw that one coming.'

_"As usual you are hereby invited to the annual Camp Half-blood Christmas party that you should already know about because we send this letter every year. _

_If you don't know about it, then here you go, but do yourself a favour and don't come. Look at it this way, if you don't show up I won't have to deal with you, you won't have to deal with me and we'll both have a Merry Christmas. _

_If you do plan on coming however, then it's in Australia. That's right, Australia. So go have your party there."_

"Australia? Really?" Paul asked, confused.

I cracked up. "He says that every year…or something along those lines."

"Last year it was Japan," Mom added and Paul laughed.

"Anyway, at the bottom:

_Date: 23__rd__ – 24__th__ December_

_Time: Whenever you get here_

_Place: Australia (Chiron says it's at Camp Half-blood, but he's a liar.)_

_RSVP: Never. Don't come._

_Theme: It's a _Christmas _party. Are you people really that stupid?"_

"That's an…interesting invite," Paul said and I shrugged.

"You get it enough times and it's not as funny. But Chiron always gets a few confused calls from campers asking where it really is."

"I can understand why-"

"Percy!" someone said and we all jumped a foot in the air. Everyone spun around to see Annabeth…via IMing. No, not instant messaging, _Iris Messaging. _Get it right.

"You gave us a heart attack!" I said, glaring at her. She ignored it of course.

"I'm sorry, Seaweed brain, but did you get the letter?" she asked holding up her envelope and I nodded showing her mine. "And are you going?"

I turned to mom and Paul and they shared a quick glance before nodding.

"You up for a trip to camp?" I asked.

* * *

Annabeth and I showed up at camp at about 12:30 in the afternoon. Apparently we were only that late because of my last minute packing –according to Annabeth anyway – but the point was that we were there.

From Half-blood hill the camp looked like it always did, with a few exceptions. Like, Thalia's pine tree was covered from top to bottom in Christmas lights, tinsel and decorations; complete with a huge gold star on top. Surprisingly this didn't seem to bother Peleus, the guard dragon, who was curled up underneath the tree like usual, his sparkling scales reflecting the different colours of the flickering lights. The Big house was also covered from top to bottom in different coloured lights and tinsel as well as a layer of snow. That was the other thing; Christmas is the one time of year when there's different weather. Normally bad weather just moves around the camp, but on Christmas a light snow is allowed to fall, probably because it wouldn't feel like Christmas without it.

I looked over towards the cabins and was surprised to see two groups of campers outside arguing loudly with each other, but I couldn't tell specifically who they were. Although, one of the groups really looked like they were the Hunters of Artemis…

"Hey, is that Thalia?" Annabeth suddenly asked, pointing.

And, sure enough, Thalia Grace, dressed in full hunters gear and radiating a feint glow was hiking angrily up the hill towards us. Her glare was so fierce that I was almost tempted to turn around and go back the way I had come. But I knew better.

"Annabeth! Come back me up on this!" She shouted, grabbing her hand and pulling her back downhill towards the cabins. I had to jog to catch up.

"Back you up on what?" I asked, looking over at the squabble. "What's going on?"

"None of your business, Percy," she said fiercely, although I had a feeling that it wasn't me that she was angry with.

As we got closer, I could finally see who the two fighting cabins were. The Hunters and the Aphrodite campers. Typical.

"Alright," Thalia said, quietening everyone down. "Annabeth, tell the Aphrodite campers that they aren't allowed to hang mistletoe everywhere. It's disrespectful to the Hunters." Annabeth seemed speechless.

"Wait," I said in disbelief. "_That's _what this is about? Some stupid mistletoe?"

Thalia's eyes narrowed. Okay, _now _she was angry at me.

"It's not stupid when they hang it everywhere and then expect us, the Hunters of Artemis who have sworn against dating, to kiss someone!"

"But our mother is the goddess of _love_!" One of the Aphrodite campers shouted. I knew who she was, but unfortunately didn't remember her name. "We should be allowed to do this! It's not against the rules."

"Alright, alright, break it up," I said finally, stepping in the middle. "It's Christmas, so stop fighting and get over it!"

The two cabins glared at me for a moment but then settled on glowering at each other instead. "Fine," Thalia said, breaking the silence. "I won't fight with them – but we're not talking to them, or _anyone_, until they take all of the mistletoe down."

"Thalia!" I said, but she ignored me.

"Fine," the Aphrodite camper replied. "Good riddance."

And with that, the two cabins stormed off leaving me and Annabeth all alone.

"That went well," Annabeth said, stating the obvious.

"Yeah," I answered, "and so did the Trojan War."

Now, I would love to say that things got so much better from there, but that would be a lie. The Hunters kept their word and spoke to no one throughout the day. Thalia wouldn't even speak to Annabeth, no matter how much she tried to talk some sense into her. And as for the Aphrodite campers, they were putting _more _mistletoe up just to get on their nerves.

The Ares cabin picked a fight with the Hephaestus cabin after they 'accidentally' hit Clarisse and a few other campers with snowballs while they were having a snowball fight. And by 'snowball fight' what I really mean is 'snowball _war._'They'd built huge catapults that launched snowballs bigger than my head, weird wheels with cups on the ends that spun and threw snow continuously, and, to top it all off, they each had a paintball gun that had been modified to fire snow. So when Clarisse stepped in-between everyone to get to her cabin she was quickly pelted with snow and turned into a living snowman. I don't think it helped when one of the campers put a top hat on her head and stuck a carrot to her nose.

The Hermes cabin set off some homemade fireworks (don't ask me how they pulled that off) behind the Hecate cabin, scaring them half to death. But I think that the thing that really set off the fighting was when one of the Hecate campers somehow managed to give Connor Stoll a fox tail and ears. Travis got a wolf tail and ears to match.

The Demeter and Dionysus cabins eventually got sick of all of the snow, claiming that nothing would grow properly and if they couldn't grow anything they would "die" (I've heard better excuses myself) so they teamed up and complained to Chiron and Dionysus about it. When they lost the argument, they turned the inside of the Big House into a jungle and covered it with tinsel to make it more festive. Mr. D had to clean it up and you can imagine how happy he was about that.

And, to finish off the "great" day, the Apollo cabin decided that it would be a good idea to go around to _every_ cabin and sing 'We wish you a merry Christmas' or 'Santa Claus is coming to town' until they were given a golden drachma from each cabin. But since most of the campers were in foul moods because of everything else that had happened today, this just caused a whole lot more fighting than necessary.

And as for the Athena campers – or the _only_ campers that didn't see any sense in fighting – and I, we spent the whole day trying to fix everyone else's issues, almost giving up on every case. No one seemed like they were going to budge in their argument.

So as you could imagine, even _I _was in a horrible mood by the end of the day – only three hours before the party – and I eventually told Annabeth that I was going to the sword arena to see Mrs. O'Leary and to come get me if Tyson or Grover showed up (did I mention that we had to deal with Juniper stressing over him being late? No? Well add that to the list).

Anyway, when I got there I was surprised to find someone other than Mrs. O'Leary.

"You got invited too?" I asked Nico and he spun around, surprised. He was about to answer when Mrs. O'Leary barked excitedly and bounded over to me, her tail wagging madly. Before I knew it, I was on the floor – a position that I had gotten used to around Mrs. O'Leary – and getting completely smothered in dog drool.

"It's good to see you too girl, but let me up!"

She backed off and stuck her bum up in the air, wagging her tail in a playful way and panting.

"Hey, girl," Nico said calmly and threw a huge bone across the room. She bounded after it and I didn't dare ask him where he'd got it from.

"I got the invite yesterday. Surprisingly, dad gave it to me," he said.

I stared at him. "Your _dad_?"

"Yeah. I thought it was weird too, but I didn't ask why. No use in getting him angry over nothing."

I could see where he was coming from…"But, to tell you the truth, I didn't really expect you to show up," I admitted, taking the bone from Mrs. O'Leary and throwing it again. "It doesn't really look like your scene."

Nico nodded. "I didn't want to come. It seems kind of stupid to me but…Bianca told me that I had to spend more time with my friends…and family."

I blinked in surprise. Nico wasn't really a family orientated guy – most of the 'people' that he hung around weren't with the living. But even though that was the case, he always listened to his sister.

"But I don't know why she was so insistent," he continued, taking the bone and throwing it again again. "You guys are all acting like idiots and I think that coming was a waste of time."

"Yeah," I agreed with a sigh. "I know what you mean."

"I bet the Gods will have a better time at their party," he muttered in annoyance. "Dad won't stop talking about it."

"What do you mean?" I asked. The Gods were having a party?

"You don't know about it?" Nico asked and I shook my head. He then proceeded to explain everything and as he did so, a plan started to form in my mind. By the time he was done, I knew exactly what I had to do.

"Oh no," Nico said, studying my expression. "I know that look; you're up to something."

I smiled at him and shook my head. "If I'm not back in time for the party, stall them."

Nico gave me a pained expression. "You mean I have to go?"

"Yes," I said slowly. "But trust me; you're going to like it."

* * *

"Thanks for that, Blackjack," I said as I climbed quickly off his back and started running towards the big house.

"Anything for you, Boss!" He replied. "But remember what you promised!"

"Right!" I called back. Sugar cubes. Always sugar cubes.

I raced through the doors of the Big house to hear 'All I want for Christmas is you' pumping loudly throughout the room. Lights were flashing bright colours and the whole area was decorated festively with tinsel and Christmas lights and, thankfully, completely void of plants. But even though everything looked amazing, everyone was either split up into their cabin groups and yelling at each other, or face to face with another cabin and yelling at them. Satyrs stood awkwardly in a corner, not sure of what to do and Mr. D was glaring at everyone as if he'd rather be anywhere but here. I couldn't see Chiron but I figured he was in the crowd somewhere trying to calm everyone down.

"Perrrcy!" I barely heard over the music and I turned to see Grover standing in one of the corners with Junpier, Nico, Tyson and Annabeth. He waved at me and started to move forward but I shook my head vigorously and he frowned at me.

"Stay there!" I shouted back and pushed through crowds of angry campers to where Will Solace, the head councelor of the Apollo cabin, was avoiding all of the arguing by being the DJ. I didn't blame him.

"Will!" I shouted over the music and, well, the shouting of everyone else. "Turn it off!"

"Why?"

"Just do it!" I yelled back.

He shrugged and then flipped a few switches and then everything shut off immediately. For a second everyone was confused as to where the music had gone, but pretty soon they were back to yelling again. I spotted Chiron and Annabeth in the crowd and they both gave me weird looks which I returned with my own that said 'I know what I'm doing.'

"Will, do you have a mic on here?" I asked calmly, looking around the awesome DJ system that _had_ to be designed by one of the Hephaestus campers.

"Yeah, here," he handed it to me and I cleared my throat.

"Guys?" My voice echoed through the whole room but no one even looked up. They were all too busy with whatever they were fighting about.

"Guys!" I shouted, but I got the same result.

"SHUT UP OR YOU CAN ALL SPEND CHRISTMAS IN THE UNDERWORLD!"

Everyone went dead silent. Finally.

"Thank you!" I said in relief frowning at them. "You guys are being so stupid! Have you even seen yourselves?"

All of the campers just stared open mouthed at me, practically daring me to continue. I think Clarisse was about ready to hit me between the eyes with her electric spear.

"I don't mean to sound cheesy or anything, but it's Christmas and all you guys can think about doing is arguing with each other! What is wrong with you?" I got no answer. "Well, I've had it, and so have most of the other campers. So when Nico told me of the God's plans for this Christmas this year, I took a trip to visit them. Now we're having our party at a different venue."

Talking filled the room and I placed my hand over the microphone, looking up at the sky out of habit. "Zeus? Now would be a great time to-"

I was suddenly in the Gods throne room on mount Olympus. Actually, we were _all _in the throne room – everyone from camp half-blood. But, the thing was, we were facing some very strange looking Gods. Zeus was wearing a red Santa hat with a flashing lightning bolt on it and had bits of tinsel stuck in his beard, while Hera had a piece of tinsel wrapped around her waist. Artemis was wearing a pair of reindeer horns wrapped in tinsel and her brother was covered from head to toe in coloured Christmas lights. Aphrodite had tinsel braided through her hair and mistletoe positioned neatly on her head…actually, all of the other gods had some form of decoration on them too, namely tinsel. Even my dad was dressed for the occasion – his Hawaiian shirt had a picture of a snowman and a Christmas tree on it. Ignoring the stunned look on the campers faces, I quickly turned to face Zeus.

"Thanks," I said a bit awkwardly and he nodded.

"Okay, Percy, what in the name of Hades are we doing here?" Thalia asked, practically fuming.

"Hey! I'm right here you know!" Hades said from his dark, temporary throne. I almost laughed when I saw that he had black tinsel in his hair, but everyone else was too busy staring at him in disbelief.

"I will explain," Lady Artemis said. She glanced at Zeus, who nodded, before she stood up and shrunk to our size in front of us. "Every year on Christmas, the Gods all come together to celebrate and throw a party. It's a tradition."

"And I must admit," Zeus cut in, scratching at his beard and removing the bits of tinsel stuck in it. "Although we were a bit uncertain about this 'Christmas Party' concept at first, we really have come to like or even appreciate the holiday."

All of the Gods seemed to nod and mutter agreements. Even Dionysus agreed as he grew and joined the rest of the Gods on their thrones, happy to be with them instead of us. Apollo blew loudly into a noisemaker and Artemis glared at him before turning back to us.

"But there are also other reasons why this holiday is important. Christmas is the one time of year where we have all agreed not to fight or argue. On Christmas we call a truce to be with family and friends without the usual disagreement."

"And, of course, all of you are ruining it," Hera said sternly, narrowing her eyes at us. "I know that we all don't get along at the best of times," she looked at Annabeth when she said that, "but we shouldn't be quarrelling on the one day of the year that is supposed to be saved for spending time with your family. And since I'm the goddess of family, I know what I'm talking about."

I looked around at the campers and saw all of them taking a great interest in their shoes and hands.

"But," Zeus said making a few of the campers look up. "Although I hate to admit it, Percy came and talked to us about a…good idea. We discussed it thoroughly and came to an agreement. This year, your annual Christmas party and _our _annual Christmas party shall be combined and held here on Olympus! As my wife said, it is Christmas and we will not argue. Let's just put this big mess behind us and celebrate!"

Everyone was silent, either looking at me or more likely at Zeus's Santa hat.

"Party?" One of the campers at the back asked unsurely and Zeus laughed.

"Party!"

"Whoohoo!" Apollo said and blew into his noise maker again jumping out of his throne.

Then, the _real_ party started. And, to tell you the truth, it was a lot like the first Olympian party that I went to – aside from the _huge _Christmas tree in the corner, the Christmas lights, holly, tinsel and other festive things that appeared everywhere – only it was waaay better. For one thing, I was here with all of my friends this time and they were talking and smiling, obviously having let the events of today go. Some of them even came to say thanks, although I really don't know what for. I don't think that I could have stopped them from arguing without the gods help – it's one thing to hear it from a friend, but another to hear it from your parents.

Even some of the Gods that I knew – the ones that didn't hate me – came over to say 'hi', including my dad. He told me that he thought that this was one of the best Christmas parties they'd ever had and he was happy that I'd come up with the idea. But our conversation didn't last long; I think that he was enjoying himself a bit too much.

Eventually I found Nico in the corner of the room away from the loud speakers.

"Still not your scene?" I asked and he hesitated before shaking his head.

"Not really, but I gotta say, the Olympians really do know how to party." I watched as Will Solace and Travis Stoll were passed from person to person over the crowd before nodding. "And…"

"And what?" I asked, frowning at him.

"I think I get why Bianca was so insistent that I go to this party," he admitted, looking around at everyone. "She wanted me to be with you guys because she didn't want me to lose you…and I think she kind of knew how all of this was going to play out."

I thought about it. If it wasn't for Nico I would have never known about the God's party and everyone would still be arguing. Maybe she really did know what was going to happen. She saved everyone a lot of trouble.

"I think she did know," I replied sadly. "And I think she also knew that you'd get something out of it." I looked at him expectantly.

"What? You want me to say something sappy like 'although we're not perfect we're all still family and I need you?' Well I'm not going to. But thanks." And with that, he stormed off into the crowd, hopefully to do some dancing. All well, if that was the best I could get out of him, I was happy.

"Hey, Percy."

I turned around to see Annabeth standing behind me with a smile on her face. "Good plan, Seaweed brain. Maybe your head isn't full of kelp after all."

I rolled my eyes and took her hand. "Thankyou?"

"Don't mention it."

We stood together for a while, just watching the partygoers before Annabeth shoved me.

"What was that for?" I asked, rubbing my arm.

"Are you going to ask me to dance or what?" she asked, but her tone did sound kind of hurt. I felt like hitting myself in the head. I'd been so distracted that I hadn't bothered to ask her to dance.

"I'm sorry. Come on," I said and lead her onto the dance floor.

I felt her hands slide around my neck, making electricity seem to race through my body and I placed mine on her waist and pulled her close. For a while we just danced slowly in a circle but it was ruined when some of the campers started a conga line around the room. I think I had an idea as to what type of music they were hearing.

"You gotta love our messed up family," Annabeth said and I laughed.

"I don't think we have a choice," I murmured, resting my forehead against hers. "But I would like them even if I didn't have the choice."

She smiled. "Merry Christmas, Percy." Then she leaned in, closing the distance between us and kissed me, making everything around us just disappear. It was amazing, but I didn't mind when Tyson, Grover and Juniper interrupted us so we could all dance together.

"Merry Christmas!" They all chorused and Annabeth and I replied with the same greeting.

And you know what? It was a Merry Christmas – one of the best Christmas's I'd ever had.

* * *

**I hope that you guys liked it! Merry Christmas to everyone!**

**-Bell**


End file.
